Books by Yakov Z. Mayer
This book focuses on one medieval manuscript of the Palestinian Talmud, that served as a printer'... more This book focuses on one medieval manuscript of the Palestinian Talmud, that served as a printer's copy for the first edition of the composition, printed in Venice (1523). A detailed philological examination of the preparation of the text for print, drives a comprehensive description of transition of Talmudic literature from manuscript culture to print culture.
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Papers by Yakov Z. Mayer
Medieval Encounters, 2023
Fragments of manuscripts were constantly used in bindings of new books throughout the medieval an... more Fragments of manuscripts were constantly used in bindings of new books throughout the medieval and early modern periods. Usually, no intellectual connection exists between the parchment fragment, stripped to its material function, and the text of the new book. We argue that a fifteenth-century codex containing Thomas Aquinas's Summa theologiae, which was bound with a Hebrew-Aramaic fragment of the Talmud Yerushalmi, presents a unique case of an intertextual interaction, as a later hand inserted an enigmatic list of references to questions in the Summa. Following the references, we reconstruct the subtle relations between these scholastic questions and the Talmudic story presented in the fragment, then examine these associations and the topic they seem to address in two contexts. First, the intricate Christian-Jewish climate in fifteenth-century Vienna and the question of Jewish attitudes towards the crucifix; second, the context of annotations and scholarly practices of reading, note taking and drafting.
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European Genizah, 2020
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Studia Rosenthaliana: Journal of the History, Culture and Heritage of the Jews in the Netherlands, 2020
Elijah of Fulda was the first Ashkenazi Jew in the Early Modern period to write a commentary on t... more Elijah of Fulda was the first Ashkenazi Jew in the Early Modern period to write a commentary on the Palestinian Talmud, printed in Amsterdam in 1710. Through a close reading of the nine approbations that preface Elijah’s commentary, this article reconstructs his itinerary throughout Europe and his journey from relative obscurity to the center of the Hebrew and Jewish book world of his day ‐ Amsterdam. The article argues that although other commentaries replaced that of Elijah of Fulda in popularity in subsequent editions, he should be remembered as the first to establish a tradition of Ashkenazic study of the Palestinian Talmud, and as the scholar who shaped the impagination of subsequent editions.
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Studia Rosethaliana, 2020
Elijah of Fulda was the first Ashkenazi Jew in the Early Modern period to write a commentary on t... more Elijah of Fulda was the first Ashkenazi Jew in the Early Modern period to write a commentary on the Palestinian Talmud, printed in Amsterdam in 1710. Through a close reading of the nine approbations that preface Elijah's commentary, this article reconstructs his itinerary throughout Europe and his journey from relative obscurity to the center of the Hebrew and Jewish book world of his day-Amsterdam. The article argues that although other commentaries replaced that of Elijah of Fulda in popularity in subsequent editions, he should be remembered as the first to establish a tradition of Ashkenazic study of the Palestinian Talmud, and as the scholar who shaped the impagination of subsequent editions.
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An anonymous Jew arrived in Florence in the second half of the fifteenth century and spotted a pa... more An anonymous Jew arrived in Florence in the second half of the fifteenth century and spotted a pair of porphyry columns at the entrance of the Florence Baptistery. The spot overwhelmed the Jew, as it reminded him of the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem, and he began to cry. Some time later he recorded his intense emotional experience in a quasi-Zoharic homily on the margins of a manuscript of the Zohar. In this study, the homily is presented for the first time; copied, translated and contextualized. The article argues that it has to be understood as a response to the view of the Florence Baptistery entrance in its entirety – the columns surrounding Lorenzo Ghiberti’s famous ‘Porta del Paradiso’ (Gates of Paradise), with the Christian biblical images inscripted on them. Following this approach, a suggestion is made to see the homily as a Jewish reaction to the Christian use of the Old Testament during the Renaissance.
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Zion 83.3, pp. 277-321, 2018
In this article an attempt is made to analyze one of the most important manuscripts of the Palest... more In this article an attempt is made to analyze one of the most important manuscripts of the Palestinian Talmud, Vatican Ebr. 133, as well as its origins and reception. Vat. Ebr. 133 presents about a quarter of the Palestinian Talmud ‒ Tractate Sota and most of Seder Zerai’m. Talmud scholars constantly resort to this manuscript to reconstruct the text of the Palestinian Talmud. The tortuous life-course of Vat. Ebr. 133 is fully described here. It was copied in Germany in the thirteenth or fourteenth century, was damaged, underwent restoration, and then made its way to Bomberg’s publishing house in Venice and ultimately ‒ via Otto Heinrich’s collection ‒ to the Vatican collection. The article also describes the relationship between Vat. Ebr. 133 and Palestinian Talmud fragments found in book bindings in Munich, Darmstadt and Trier, and proposes a hypothesis about its origins. Sundry scribes wrote annotations in its margins. One sought to emend the text of the Talmud by comparing Vat. Ebr. 133 with quotations from the Talmud in the writings of medieval scholars. Another scribe, whom we know by name (the German Hebraist Kilian Leib), marked passages for future use in his theological works. The article constitutes a complete monograph of Vat. Ebr. 133, the first to be written about a Talmudic manuscript that describes such a work from its creation to its digitization.
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European Genizah Newly Discovered Hebrew Binding Fragments in Context, 2020
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Kabbalah, 2019
In this article I describe, edit and publish for the first time a previously unknown commentary o... more In this article I describe, edit and publish for the first time a previously unknown commentary on the Idra Rabba, written in Italy in the beginning of the sixteenth century by an anonymous Spanish kabbalist. This is the earliest known commentary on any portion of the Zohar.
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על מפעלו המחקרי של אפשטיין, על האופק הציוני של עבודתו ועל התגובות אליה.
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Thesis Chapters by Yakov Z. Mayer
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עבודת גמר לתואר שני
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Drafts by Yakov Z. Mayer
נספח למאמר שבכתובים, סימון גבולות ההעתקה של המעתיקים השונים בכתב יד ותיקן 133 של התלמוד הירושלמי ... more נספח למאמר שבכתובים, סימון גבולות ההעתקה של המעתיקים השונים בכתב יד ותיקן 133 של התלמוד הירושלמי והדגמה של המאפיינים האישיים של כתיבתם.
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Conference Presentations by Yakov Z. Mayer
הרצאה בכנס ״דעת המקום״ 10.14
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Talks by Yakov Z. Mayer
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Book Reviews by Yakov Z. Mayer
Ancient Jew Review, 2020
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Books by Yakov Z. Mayer
Papers by Yakov Z. Mayer
Thesis Chapters by Yakov Z. Mayer
Drafts by Yakov Z. Mayer
Conference Presentations by Yakov Z. Mayer
Talks by Yakov Z. Mayer
Book Reviews by Yakov Z. Mayer